Emanuel Sayles was the cat who can play anything

Emanuel Sayles was the cat who can play anything

Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. Emanuel René “Manny” Sayles loved the banjo so much he played it in his sleep. He once said that without music, he would “grieve himself to death.” Music was his life and the only life he wanted. “I could have been a carpenter if I wanted. I could have been a bricklayer if I wanted,” Sayles said. “But I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to be nothing but a musician.…